Parents: While They Got Kicked off Overbooked Delta Flight, Staff Said They Could Lose Their Kids

The Schear family probably won’t fly Delta anymore. They said the airline kicked them off a Hawaii-to-Los Angeles flight. The reason: they argued with employees who told them they had to take their two-year-old son out of his seat, and carry him for the entire way.

Brian Schear says he and his wife got threatened with jail time, and that they’d lose their children.

Schear told ABC that staff said to him, “You have to give up the seat or you’re going to jail, your wife is going to jail and they’ll take your kids from you.”

“He rode on a car seat the whole way out here on a Delta flight,” the father said on footage.

“That’s unfortunate,” the employee said. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’m just trying to do the best I can now.”

Now they demand an apology.

The man insisted that they previously flew on a Delta flight, and the car seat was no problem. The employee said that according to FAA regulations they were pulling up, however, the child could not be in a seat at all because he’s two years or younger.

“How did we get up here?” the father said. “And also too, how did we get through security with two kids, two car seats, go all the way through your gate way, and then they come down here, and say we have to get off this plane.”

Employees later issued them an ultimatum: get out. The family was getting kicked off, even though the father offered to hold the kid on his lap. He complained that the company screwed up.

“You should’ve thought about that before you oversold the flight,” he said.

The family got off the flight after being promised their checked bags would be taken off the plane too.

We reached out to Delta for comment, and an explanation of their policies. A spokesperson promised that another representative would get back to us, and we will update with any response that we get.

Delta policy promises child safety seats in most situations.

“For kids under the age of two, we recommend you purchase a seat on the aircraft and use an approved child safety seat,” they say, adding that there are exceptions.

When using a child safety seat, don’t select seats in the following areas:

Aisle seats

Emergency exit rows

Any seat one row forward or one row back from an emergency exit row

Bulkhead seats when the safety seat is a combination car seat and stroller

Flat bed seats in the Delta One™ area of the following aircraft: Airbus A330-200 or A330-300; Boeing 777, 767 or 747 aircraft*

*Child Safety Seats are not permitted in this area since the airbag seat belt cannot be deactivated.

This incident may remind you of David Dao, a Kentucky doctor forcibly removed from an overbooked United flight to make room for standby crew to sit. His lawyer said he lost two teeth, sustained a concussion, and broke his nose because of this incident, and they managed to reach an undisclosed settlement with the airline.